A fisherman's son and the plumber who paid for his lessons

Michael Bublé was born in Burnaby, British Columbia, in 1975, to Lewis Bublé, a fisherman, and Amber, a homemaker. His great-grandparents on both sides had come from Italy. His interest in jazz began around age five, when his family played Bing Crosby's White Christmas album, and Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Elvis Presley, Bobby Darin and Sam Cooke number among his musical influences.

He grew up wanting to play ice hockey for the Vancouver Canucks, and he says that if he had been any good at it, he would probably not be singing now. From the age of fourteen he spent six years working summers as a commercial fisherman with his father, an experience he called the most deadly physical work he would ever know. At thirteen his family noticed his talent when he powerfully sang a line of “White Christmas” during a car ride.

His first singing jobs came at sixteen, in nightclubs, with a little help from his grandfather Demetrio Santagà, a plumber, who offered plumbing services in exchange for stage time for his grandson. The grandfather also paid for his singing lessons. By 2003 his self-titled third album reached the top ten in Canada and the United Kingdom, and he found a worldwide audience with It's Time in 2005 and Call Me Irresponsible in 2007, which reached number one in Canada, the UK, the US and Australia.

Crazy Love debuted at number one in the US in 2009, and the Christmas album spent five weeks on top of the Billboard 200 at the turn of 2011 and 2012. To Be Loved followed in 2013, Nobody but Me in 2016 and Love in 2018. Bublé has sold over 75 million records and won five Grammy Awards and fifteen Juno Awards, and is often credited with renewing public interest in traditional pop standards.